This ESF funded Exploratory Workshop aims at analyzing some of the key issues regarding contemporary Iberian Studies from a comparative European perspective, by creating a privileged space for dialogue, debate and networking between distinguished experts in different aspects of Iberian literature, history and culture.
More precisely, this Workshop will focus on the concept of Iberia itself: its scientific accuracy; its validity as a starting point for scientific and academic work; its relation with other, more established terms, concepts and identities (such as Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Basque or Galician, but also Romance, European or Western identities); and, more specifically, its relation with the mythical, historical or literary narratives created to support such collective identities, and their inter-dependency, conflicts, overlappings, similarities and contradictions.
Therefore, these are the key objectives of this workshop:
To establish a “state of the art” in the field of Iberian Studies with regard to associations, departments, publications, research projects and scientific meetings.
To discuss the scientific validity and the epistemological foundations of the field of Iberian Studies, considering its specificities within the European context, its (somewhat conflicting) relations with other scientific domains and its connections with the general fields of Literary Theory, Comparative Literature or Cultural Studies.
To offer a comparative European perspective towards the relationship between collective identity formation in the Iberian Peninsula and the construction of mythical, historical, literary or cinematographic narratives, considering it as a complex process with artistic, cultural, ideological and socio-political consequences.
To reflect on the similarities and specificities of the formation of different literary canons within the Iberian Peninsula (each canon associated not only with a language, but also with a national identity).
To explore the possibilities of future collaborations and development of scientific networks, coordinated projects, specialized publications, or Europe-wide associations of scholars in the field of Iberian Studies.
More precisely, this Workshop will focus on the concept of Iberia itself: its scientific accuracy; its validity as a starting point for scientific and academic work; its relation with other, more established terms, concepts and identities (such as Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Basque or Galician, but also Romance, European or Western identities); and, more specifically, its relation with the mythical, historical or literary narratives created to support such collective identities, and their inter-dependency, conflicts, overlappings, similarities and contradictions.
Therefore, these are the key objectives of this workshop: